Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance (ISR) systems may include a plurality of sensors mounted on a plurality of airborne platforms, which can be for example manned or unmanned aircraft. The sensors are used to gather information about an area of interest. Communication links can be provided to transmit the collected information.
Traditional system reliability and maintainability (R&M) metrics for Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance (ISR) platforms include an indication of the Operational Availability (Ao) of system assets, and an indication of the mission reliability (MR). Availability is a measure of fleet status, for example, the percent of assets available to begin a mission. Mission reliability is a measure of the probability of successful mission completion. Ao and MR are static metrics and do not portray inherent system robustness.
Operational availability is the probability that a system will be operating or capable of operation when required. In the context of an airborne surveillance system, it includes squadron metric-uptime/possessed hours, and approximates a readiness-to-launch rate. Possessed hours represent the calendar time, in hours, that aircraft are “possessed” by the squadron and not reassigned to backup or depot status.
The availability metric is typically used during an operation and support phase of a system's life, and is the same as a mission capable (MC) rate. It can also be used in an acquisition phase, but is limited by customer understanding of logistics delay times. A0 does not provide any information about an asset's ability to perform the mission.
The mission reliability metric estimates the probability of success for a single mission in a single time period. It also estimates the average time between mission-ending failures. Mission reliability can be defined as: a measure of the ability of an asset to perform its required mission-critical functions for the duration of a specified mission; or the probability that a system can complete its required operational mission without an operational mission failure (OMF). An OMF is a failure that prevents the system from performing one or more mission-essential functions, or a measure of operational effectiveness that reflects the frequency with which a commander would remove a system from the ongoing mission and/or not begin another mission.
Traditional system reliability and maintainability (R&M) metrics for Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance (ISR) platforms fail to adequately measure the utility of the ISR system.
There is a need for a method and apparatus for analyzing ISR systems that can provide an indication of the utility of the system.